36 Exceptional Australia 2015
Q How do you secure funding for Street Swags?
We’ve never had any government funding, so I’ve had to be innovative in
planning for the succession and the longevity of the organisation. We are
creating new streams of more reliable, more controllable income to allow
us to continue supplying our products to the homeless. We’re about to
come out with our own bottled water, and we now sublease a lot of our
fundraising infrastructure. We also have our Walkabout Beds, which we sell
at motorcycle shops and music festivals.
The maturing of new income streams through the sales of Walkabout Beds
and income from events and hospitality will provide added promotion and
some financial stability. While it is true that the business will continue to rely
on the generosity of others into the future, I am working towards a situation
where the company generates and controls as much of its own income
as possible.
Social entrepreneur
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Virtuous
Q What are the benefits of involving the community in
the production process?
The community engagement in the swag production process benefits local
businesses, prisoners, school students and teachers, charities and shelters,
and leads to community ownership. The low cost associated with this
process has helped to maintain our competitive advantage and allowed more
swags to be on the streets.
Our production process engages with the community on many levels.
When a donor gives to Street Swags, they are aware that they are not only
providing some relief to the homeless in our community but also helping
prisoners to gain work skills, teaching students social responsibility and
supporting Australian manufacturing businesses.
Q You have already achieved a lot. What are your plans
for Street Swags?
For me, it’s a 30-year plan to end systematically entrenched poverty
in Australia. We won’t be able to do that by playing by the book. No
government through history, anywhere in the world, has ended poverty;
it’s about communities taking responsibility for themselves. That’s why we’ve
established our community healing program, which is all about keeping
people alive and giving them the emotional resilience to break that cycle of
homelessness and incarceration. Within the next five years, I want to have
Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia offering that
program, and having it owned by the communities that run it. In 10 years,
I’d like to see the program being offered to all communities within Australia
that need it.
Jean with fellow finalists Maxine Horne, Carl Hartmann
and Geoff Pike (left to right) at the 2014 Northern Region awards
PhotographysuppliedbyStreetSwags